🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <17835@umd5.umd.edu>, aides@hamlet.umd.edu (Marcus Wilhoit)
wrote:
> 
> 
> What in the World is going on?  It seems to me that Apple will just
> become a software
> company with the advent of the Power PC.  Nothing makes any sense?  What
> will be the
> difference between a PowerPC made by IBM as opposed to one made by Apple?
>  Multi-
> platform should be multi-GUI either windows or MacOS, the platform will
> pretty much
> be the same (the Power PC).  NeXT and other companies are also looking at
> the Power PC chip.  Is everyone going with one really fast platform in
> which the will use something like Bedrock for writting applications?

Hi, things are not that messy, it's just that we don't want to talk 
about products before they are really shipping. Talking about unannounced
products will just make the situation more messy.

The PowerPC chip will be used for personal, office level computers by
Apple, and in high end workstations by IBM. This is a nice and clear
separation, and it's actually a win-win situation for both parts.

PowerOpen is for the 'Open Systems People', while MacOS for PowerPC
is for the rest of us :-). Another win-win, if you think open systems
is the way to go, go for PowerOpen. If you like the MacOS environment,
you got it.

I've been involved in this project for eight months now, and even if I'm
leaving it due to a new challenge, I must say that things are really
under control and something wonderful will happen soon.

Cheers,
Kent
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.		
Predictions: Soon moving to Newton DTS, bye bye.

ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik ) writes:
>The PowerPC chip will be used for personal, office level computers by
>Apple, and in high end workstations by IBM. This is a nice and clear
>separation, and it's actually a win-win situation for both parts.

       There is no such 'clear separation'.  Sun workstations now start
at prices well below high-end Macs.  If there is a real separation in
future, it's going to be between portables and desktop machines.
It's a classic IBM ploy to try to make such distinctions stick by
marketing means and by crippling the low-end machines.  When I hear something
like the above, I expect to see "low end" machines crippled by limited
expansion capability.  

>PowerOpen is for the 'Open Systems People', while MacOS for PowerPC
>is for the rest of us :-). Another win-win, if you think open systems
>is the way to go, go for PowerOpen. If you like the MacOS environment,
>you got it.

        Using software emulation.  Right.  As Kent has previously admitted,
the new machines will run the Mac OS in a software emulator, something like
Soft PC, and the "real PowerPC environment" will have a different 
API and GUI.  Sounds like A/UX.

        It's sad.  If Apple had come out with a protected-mode MacOS with
multiprocessor support (difficult, but possible) kicked Motorola into 
building faster M68xxx CPUs and saturated the educational market with 
low-end Macs equipped with built-in CD-ROM drives, Apple could have 
retained its leadership position.  But, with top management choosing a 
"strategic alliance" with IBM, a classic tar pit, as Apple's future, one can 
only expect decline.
 
					John Nagle